I am currently nearing the point where I can begin porting the old VB6 code to the new language. BSGame library is basically complete, I just need to get a small framework for the server and client and then the projects will be forked and work on Odyssey will resume.

Public Beta builds are a possibility, but only when feasible. I would not suggest anybody to use the Beta builds as a full server yet though. They will be highly experimental and will not have the full functionality of the current build.

So I've stated several times that Odyssey was built on a now dead language and that I'm in the process of converting to VB.NET to keep along with the VB theme (in case someone else takes over down the line). I've decided on a few big changes to the Odyssey engine though to help speed the process along.

In case you are unfamiliar, I started a project called BSGame that is basically a 2D game library. It is custom built for my own needs, but I think it should also work very well for Odyssey as well. Therefore, while you as users will not see any immediate change, this will greatly speed up conversion since the entire library is already built and I just need to tailor it for Odyssey's needs.

Second, Odyssey scripting will also be receiving an upgrade. Since I was not given the source for the scripting (and it is written specifically for VB6) I will be dumping the language and move the scripting over to BSGame.Scripting which is based off of Lua. Do not worry too much though if you plan on reviving one of your old servers. I will be creating a new converter to convert your entire server over to the new formats INCLUDING your scripts. If your scripts cannot be converted, you can contact me and I will do my best to help work it out for you.

No promise on when I'll be done, just a couple things I wanted to share about the future of Odyssey.

I've updated the client, updater, and server yesterday. More bug fixes. The client that I had uploaded apparently didn't work at all on windows 7 machines, but worked fine on winxp machines.

I hacked out all the Direct3D stuff because of incompatibilities with Windows 7. DirectX 7 and 8 3D is totally unsupported with Windows 7 (meaning it no worky at all). So that will have to wait until I can finish upgrading the client code to .NET.

The updated client and updater can update through the updater. The server must be manually downloaded.